


the heaven of a human spirit ringing

by meliebee



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Comfort No Hurt, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Fluff, Gen, House Stark, Hurt/Comfort, I don't even go here but I love the Starks and they deserve better so that's what I gave them!!, I wrote this because I was sad for the Starks, Rickon Lives, Theon Greyjoy Lives, Tormund and Meera are here too!, absolutely no death here today folks, and also because that's just more natural lmao, because Jon isn't an idiot, being lenient with canon and time but it's for a good cause!!, idk how I'll end this but uhh dany sure won't be killed by her bf., it's-what-they-deserve.gif, minor gendry implied, so if u want to be less sad about the Starks this is the story for u!, the Starks survive!!!! screw d&d!!, the jonerys is more of a comfortable slow burn, the whole gang is here folks and they're HAPPY and ALIVE, we don't romanticise intimate partner violence in this house
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-03-08 12:58:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18895111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meliebee/pseuds/meliebee
Summary: Jon doesn’t know what to say, so Sansa speaks for him. “We’re your siblings. We’re your family. The last of the Starks.” She waits until Rickon meets her eyes before continuing. “We’ll give you new memories to know us by.”(More Starks survive, and the world is better for it.)





	1. grow bold in a barren and desolate land (love, be good to me)

**Author's Note:**

> I've never watched or read GoT, because I can't sit and watch something that benefits from the exploitation of women's trauma and abuse. I wish I could say I was surprised to learn how Dany dies, and at whose hands, but women being killed for and by men is literally the most unsurprising (and disgusting!!!) trope of television and has been for absolutely ever. 
> 
> that being said!! I love these characters. Here is a story where the Starks thrive, because I want them to and they deserve it.

In the times to come, Jon will look back and know how lucky they were. But in the moment, he doesn’t feel lucky at all. All he can see is his little brother, raggedy, sobbing, sprinting across a field he’ll never cross in time.

Jon urges his horse, faster, faster, and he knows this is what Ramsay wants but he can’t just stand and watch his only living brother die in front of him. Sansa would call him a fool, but even she cannot escape the terrible loneliness that comes from surviving every one of your siblings. Ramsay notches an arrow and lets it fly _._ The first one misses, and Rickon sends a terrified glance behind him but doesn’t falter on his journey, but Jon knows its part of the man’s plan and when he shoots the next arrow Jon _screams_ , louder than he thought he could: “Swerve!”

Rickon does. The arrow lands near his feels. Rickon sobs. Jon’s close enough, now, that he can hear it. The next arrow comes hurtling from the sky, and Jon yells again: “Duck!” Rickon ducks, but not deep enough, and Ramsay’s bolt catches him in his shoulder. Rickon stumbles but doesn’t stop, and Jon is so close, so close, he only has to come a bit further, and the next arrow follows the last so closely that Jon doesn’t have time to warn the boy before it lands in his back, but Rickon keeps running.

And then Jon is falling off his horse and rushing to meet the boy, grabbing his arms and shoving him onto the horse. “Go,” he says, and he knows there’s no time, but… this is his brother. This is his only brother. His hair is just as curly as Jon’s, but lighter than Robb’s. He wears furs and his face is a painting of fear and misery but he’s strong and he’s survived this far. “Go!” Jon yells, urging the horse back, and Rickon turns to watch him as the horse leaves him behind but Jon has to trust that he’ll make it because Ramsay is screaming in rage, and Longclaw is heavy in Jon’s hand.

Jon unsheaths the sword, throws away its scabbard, and for just one moment he lets himself think about the fact that even if Rickon makes it back to Sansa, he’ll likely die. He’s a skinny thing, young, and Jon has seen bigger men die from less.

 _No._ That’s Sansa’s voice, her determination, her refusal to let things be as they fall. _Make them pay._ That’s Robb, dead and gone, his voice only the faintest memory in Jon’s mind. Jon looks up at the approaching army.

He thinks, _if I am to die, I will die fighting._ Jon hefts the sword into the air, steadies his feet, and meets death as it clashes around him. 

 

Jon beats Ramsay’s face into a bloody pulp in the courtyard where he first learned to swing a sword, his shield poked full of arrows, his face sticky from blood and mud.

And then, after that, Sansa flies down and leaps into his arms. She’s too clean to be held by him, not when he’s so dirty, but she’s sobbing into his neck and Jon can only hold her tighter. “You saved him,” she breathes, and Jon’s blood goes cold. “You saved him, Jon, you saved him.” She pulls back just for a moment, meeting his eyes frantically. “You saved _our_ _home_. You saved our _brother._ ”

“ _We_ ,” Jon corrects, gruff, and there are tears on his cheeks, just as there are on Sansa’s. Sansa throws himself back into his arms, swaying above the ground, and then she takes a shuddering breath.

“Come,” she says. “He is being tended to, and you should be as well.”

Jon falters, then, taking in the sight of their battered home. He hasn’t seen it in so long, and now what he sees is nothing more than a skeleton. Sansa, taking his hand, turns to him. She reaches up her second hand to cup his cheek. “We will rebuild it,” she promises. “What matters is that it’s _ours_ again.”

She doesn’t look away until he meets her eyes. “This is our _home_ ,” she says softly. “We’re _home_ , Jon.”

 

It doesn’t take Rickon very long to trust them. He’s only a boy, eleven years old, and though life has been so terribly cruel to him he knows Jon from the battlefield and from the recesses of his mind, knows Sansa for her hair and the way she held him in her arms when he stumbled off Jon’s horse.

He doesn’t trust anyone else, though. His voice carries hints of a Skagosi accent, and his clothing is the farthest thing from Lordly attire, and after so many years there’s little chance he even knows what a Lord would be like, anymore. His protector was called Osha. Ramsay killed her.

They gather in the room Sansa cleared out for Rickon to lie in when being tended to, and Rickon leans against Jon on the bed, letting Sansa sit on his other side and drape her arm over his shoulders, untangling his curls.

“We thought you were dead,” Jon says softly, gruff with emotion. He curls his fingers under Rickon’s chin, lifting it to look the boy in his eyes. Sansa, with her legs curled under her, looks at Jon more softly than he's ever seen her. 

“How did you survive?”

Rickon shakes his head, leaning into Jon’s touch almost unconsciously. “I don’t remember much of it,” he says quietly. “I don’t remember much of you.”

Sansa looks away, at that, drawing in a sharp breath. Jon doesn’t know what to say, so Sansa speaks for him. “We’re your siblings. We’re your _family_. The last of the Starks.” She waits until Rickon meets her eyes warily before continuing. “We’ll give you new memories to know us by.”

 

(Rickon tells them that Bran survived the sacking of Winterfell as he had, that Bran had travelled with Osha and Hodor and that he’d headed beyond the Wall. Sansa weeps for the first time when she hears of it, hiding her face in Jon’s shoulder. Rickon holds her hand. “I’m sorry I didn’t stop him from going,” he says quietly.

Sansa shakes her head. “Rickon,” she replies, “if Bran chose to leave you, that was his choice. And if the gods bless us, he will return to us one day as you have.” Rickon smiles weakly at that, though Jon knows Sansa doesn’t pray to any gods. Jon tries to bury the worry that consumes him, because he has lived beyond the Wall and he knows the dangers that reside there. But, as Sansa reminds him later that night, Rickon came home, and Bran could too.)

 

In the days that follow, Rickon stays near to them. Sansa is working on cloaks for all three of them, because Rickon certainly can’t be expected to return to cottons and silks after a childhood of furs and leather, and she wants desperately to bind their family tangibly, noticeably together.

Rickon keeps close to their sides, his shoulders brushing Sansa’s or tucked under Jon’s arm, more at ease with Tormund than he is with the men in armour who bow to their sister. Tormund calls him _pup_ , calls him _little wolf_ , and Rickon's smile is a hesitant thing but it's there. Sansa makes sure to tell him that they don’t care what he did to survive, or where he was, because it meant that he made it home, and that they can be together again. “You don’t have to be a Lord,” she says, and her words are strong and unwavering. Jon, sitting across from her and before the fireplace, is so proud that he could burst with it. “You just have to be a Stark.” She grabs Jon's hand. "All of us are Starks. We are unbroken, and we are together." 

 

The men crown him King in the North. It’s unexpected, for so many reasons, but also because Rickon Stark is sitting right there at his right side, Sansa Stark at his left. Jon stands, turns to Sansa and sees her smiling, then turns to the other side as Rickon grabs his hand and squeezes.

Nothing is as it once was. A bastard sits as King in the North. Jon watches the men around him thrust their swords into the air, and sees Sansa smiling triumphantly beside him, and feels Rickon’s little hand in his own. Nothing is as it once was. But it’s better than it was yesterday, and it’s better than it was the day before that. Perhaps that is all legacy is; bettering the world one day at a time. It’s good enough for Jon, who has two siblings at his side when he thought he had none.

* * *

He comes back from Dragonstone a few months ahead of Daenerys. She has pledged to help them fight the Long Winter, and Jon had to swear fealty for it—he knows Sansa will be angry, but Jon knows rulers like Daenerys, strong and unflinching, and he knows how to play the game, even if he’s still learning. And Daenerys isn’t so bad. She’s got no real right to the iron throne, Jon can see it even if Tyrion Lannister can’t, but she has dragons and a passion for helping people, and anyone would be better than Cersei. And she’s kind, even if there’s so much steel around her heart that it can be hard to see. She looks at him with something kind but molten in her eyes, and… with something else, too. Something Jon isn’t sure how to respond to.

Jon thinks she and Sansa would never get along, but they could learn to respect each other. They would be formidable allies, Jon thinks.

When he dismounts his horse, still a bit unsteady on dry land after so long on the sea, Sansa is waiting for him with all the men of Winterfell around her.

He strides to meet her as she waits, and they meet in a tight tug, Sansa’s hands meeting behind his neck and over his cloak. They detangle, Sansa smiling at him, and then Jon steps beside her, where Rickon’s watching him somewhat uncertainly. “Little brother,” he murmurs, and Rickon’s face breaks into a smile, relieved, and he crashes into Jon’s midsection, his arms winding around Jon’s waist. Jon cups the back of his head and pulls him close.

“Jon,” Sansa says, stepping close and placing a hand on his arm while Rickon’s still hugging him, “did you get my letter?” There’s something in her voice that has Jon looking up, confused.

“No,” he says, and Sansa deflates a tiny bit, stepping back on her heels 

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Now he’s truly worried, but Sansa shakes her head at the sight, an unrestrained smile falling over her features 

“Bran’s home,” she whispers, and Jon’s heart falters in his chest.  _Bran._

“Bran? Bran’s home?” Rickon steps back and nods.

“We’ll take you to him,” he says, and Jon blinks at them, his head taking a few moments to reconcile the words he’s being told.

“Of course,” he murmurs, “yes.” He turns, waves a few hands to get the company settled back into Winterfell, and then lets Rickon grab his arm and pull him through Winterfell, Sansa following at his side with an unbearably fond look on her face.

People who recognise Jon stop and wave as they pass, and he waves back, stumbling a bit over his own feet. “The Godswood? Rickon, why—?” 

Sansa shakes her head. “Bran will explain. Come.” And they enter the Godswood, Jon terrified as to what he’ll find. 

Bran is sitting at the foot of a Weirwood tree. He turns when he hears them coming, and Rickon leaves Jon’s side to step forward, Sansa joining him, as Jon freezes in place. “Bran,” he breathes out, and then rushes forward, wrapping Bran in a hug, pulling back to place a bruising kiss upon his forehead.

“Jon,” Bran responds, looking up at him with a smile.

Jon chokes on a laugh, his smile spreading across his face and crinkling the croners of his eyes. “Gods, look at you, you’re a man grown.” He’s thought of Bran so often since leaving Winterfell. Catelyn’s parting words to him, and Bran’s frightening silence, had lingered in his mind for years. And then when he thought Theon had killed them… Theon, who he met at Dragonstone and called _a Greyjoy and a Stark_ …

“Almost,” Bran responds gently, and Jon can feel his confusion showing itself on his face.

“Bran has visions,” Rickon explains, stepping forward and perching on the armrest of Bran’s chair. It doesn’t seem very stable, but Rickon’s still just a wisp of a boy. “He’s part Raven, now.”

Bran nods. “I know it’s hard to understand,” he says. “But I can see almost everything, now. I’ll never walk, but I can fly.” He pauses. “You were right, to forgive Theon of what you could. It means more to him than you can know.” Jon stares at him, at his little brother who has grown so terribly old since they saw each other last. 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you,” he breathes.

Bran reaches out and grabs Jon’s hand. “Don’t be,” he says. “No one could protect me from this, Jon. And it’s not so bad. I’m still Bran. I’m still your brother, just changed.”

“As we all are,” adds Sansa, though Jon can tell even without looking that Bran unsettles her somewhat.

“Bran says something changed,” Rickon says, looking at Jon. “Something you did, it changed things.”

Bran nods. “You did protect me, Jon, even if you didn’t realise it. The future is changing. I’m the three-eyed raven, but that’s not all I am.”

“I’m glad,” Jon says after a moment. “I’d hate to lose my little brother. But it doesn’t matter how… raven… you are, Bran, I’d love you all the same.” Bran smiles at him, then, and Jon leans down to pull him into another hug. He might not understand all the things Bran is saying, or what they mean, but this is his _little brother._ His little brother, who he’d thought to be dead twice over, next to Rickon and Sansa, under the Weirwood trees in their family home. The thought of Arya is a constant wound, and Robb is an ever-present ghost, but Jon has Sansa at his side and his brothers before him, the memory of Theon’s presence and the promise of a dragon queen’s assistance.

Things have been so terribly hard, for the Starks. But they remain. Winter is coming, and the pack survives.


	2. stand proud, stand strong (allow the love that comes along)

Jon leaves Winterfell only a few weeks after he’s arrived, headed off to greet Daenerys and her entourage and guide them to Winterfell. Rickon clings to him in the hours before he leaves, winding his skinny arms around Jon’s waist and sullenly staring at the ground. Jon kneels down before his little brother and lifts his chin, meeting Rickon’s Tully eyes. “I’ll be back soon,” he promises gently.

Rickon’s lip wobbles. “They said that too,” he mutters, “and none of them ever returned.” Jon sucks in a breath. He doesn’t need to ask who Rickon’s referring to; his little brother has known so much loss is in his short life but Jon is familiar with Rickon's grief, as it is also his. 

Sansa, standing beside Rickon with her arm draped over his shoulders, doesn’t look any more willing to let Jon out of her sight. “I promise I’ll come back,” Jon says fiercely, though he knows he shouldn’t make promises he can’t keep. “Do you hear me?” Rickon nods, and Jon frowns, straightening up off the ground and pulling his brother roughly towards him, Rickon’s arms closing around his back. He’s getting taller, but he’s still small enough that Jon can hold the back of his head and fit him under his chin. “Listen to Sansa while I’m gone,” Jon murmurs into his brother’s head of curls, “and stay close to Bran. You all need each other.” Rickon nods into Jon’s furs, tightening his arms.

When he pulls away, Jon heads to Bran, who watches him with weary eyes. Jon hugs him briefly and kisses his forehead, keeping one hand on Bran’s shoulder. He can’t stop the sadness that comes upon him whenever he sees the age in Bran’s eyes, the knowledge that weighs down his little brother's mind. “Be safe,” Jon implores softly, cupping the back of Bran’s head with his second hand. “Don’t lose yourself in the ravens or the Godswood. Be there for your siblings.”

Bran sends him a half-smile. “Don’t worry about me, Jon. I’ll watch over them.” Though he cannot walk, Jon knows that Bran has more than one way to watch. He nods, sending Bran a sad smile, and then straightens again, turning at last to Sansa.

They pull each other close, breathing in tandem, and he can feel the shaky way she exhales. When they pull back from each other, Sansa meets his eyes. “You must come back to us, Jon,” she says, and though her words don’t waver he can see the vulnerability in her eyes. She doesn’t want him to go. He doesn’t either, but he must: Daenerys is an advantage against the Night King that they can’t afford to ignore.

“I will,” Jon promises, and presses a kiss to her forehead when she tilts her head. “Take care of them, Sansa.”

She nods, choked up and trying not to show it. Jon cups her cheek, so fond of his sister that it hurts. “I will be back before you know it,” Jon says gently, then raises his voice: “I leave Winterfell in your capable hands, Lady Sansa.”

Sansa draws her strength together, inhaling, and sends him a smile that only looks a little forced. Jon looks back at them for as long as he can, hesitating after mounting his horse. _I will come back,_ he pledges silently, raising his hand in farewell and smiling faintly at the three hands that lift in response. _I will not fail. I have too much to lose._

 

Queen Daenerys seems happy to see him, unfamiliar with the land but curious to see the kingdom he fought so hard to keep free.

Winter is truly coming, after all this time, and it is as wild as Jon’s family, harsh and unforgiving. The snow falls lightly, at first, but the further North they go, the thicker it becomes under their feet. Still, it does not storm, and Jon cannot help but wonder how long this Winter will last, as it’s taking so long to arrive. It will be the longest winter in centuries, the people say. Perhaps longer. Jon thinks of what dwells beyond the Wall and fears it may be even longer than that. It’s odd to think that three of the four Stark sons have spent time living as Wildlings. Bran didn’t live amongst them, and Rickon never went beyond the wall, and Jon lived as a spy, but the truth of it remains: the Stark sons belong to the True North. Ned Stark used to say it lived in their bones. 

After they’ve been flying full days, her two remaining dragons have such warm scales that they steam. Daenerys watches them with a hint of vulnerability in her eyes, like she’d forgotten they could be torn from her until being so suddenly reminded of their mortality. Jon cannot stop the guilt: she has already lost one of her dragons because of him. Sansa doesn't like the sound of her, but Jon cannot hate the woman who lost a dragon trying to save him. 

Jon talks to her often, in the weeks they spend travelling to Winterfell. She’s a good woman. He’d like to believe she’d be a good Queen, as well, but the only people who serve her are people she’s freed or commands—what would she be like to people who she conquered? Jon doesn’t yet know. Tyrion Lannister thinks she’d be a good Queen, but he has no good ruler to compare her to her. Tyrion Lannister’s family is made up of cruel men and women, and though Tyrion is friendly enough and japes often, Jon is not foolish enough to forget the man’s cunning mind. Tyrion is a Lannister, but before that he is a man who knows how to play the game. Jon’s mind doesn’t jump to politics like Sansa’s has learned to, but he can recognize an ambitious man when he sees one.

He likes Tyrion. He likes Daenerys. Though he wants to, he cannot trust them. Not yet.

(It is only as time passes, as he sees Daenerys brighten around her dragons and sees her eyes alight with wonder at the beauty of the North, that he begins to breathe easier. She had told him she would not come to burn them, but then she had burned people anyway. He is relieved to see that she is not made purely of fire and blood, that she is capable of kindness and laughter and gentleness. She is strong, stronger than almost anyone Jon knows with the exception of Sansa, but strength does not mean she would be a good ruler.)

 

Sansa sends him a raven, one month before his return to Winterfell. Arya is home. Jon tries not to collapse at the news, returns to the council discussion, and that night he sits in his bed and sobs dryly into his hands. Arya is home. He had thought her dead. He had known, in his heart, that the gods had been too kind already, that one sister and two brothers in Winterfell was already more than he’d ever expected to recover. But Arya has never needed the blessing of any gods. His little sister survived all by herself.

When Daenerys knocks on his door that night, Jon lets her in. (They don’t sleep together, because Jon isn’t a complete fool. She sits next to him, and holds his hand, and though he dismisses her silent concern she simply waits for him to be compose himself enough to tell her about his family, those he’s lost and those he’s found. In return she tells him about houses with red doors, and Dothraki men with rough hands, and a brother who said such terrible things to her. And when the night has nearly ended, and Jon’s words have finally run dry, the King in the North and the Mother of Dragons stare into each other’s eyes and he isn’t sure who leans forward first but—they kiss, and it happens, and it ends. They kiss, and Daenerys looks at him with soft heat in her eyes and his hands _burn_ to hold her but Jon is not a complete fool and there they bid each other goodnight.)

(Sansa, Jon thinks, is going to kill him.)

 

When they ride through the gates of Winterfell, Jon almost feels like one of the foreigners he leads inside. Unsullied and Dothraki men, riding and marching in lines, surround the horses that he and Daenerys ride. Above them, Drogon and Rhaegal soar, dipping low and dancing together in the clouds.

For a moment, Jon thinks of his fear: Northern men will never accept a Southern Queen, he will be killed as he has been killed before, Sansa will never forgive him—but then he dismounts his horse and sees his family standing before him, and all his doubts are lost to the consuming wave of relief that crashes over him. He takes large steps forward to meet them, fur cloak billowing behind him, and though Sansa tries to hold him back, Rickon immediately comes running to crash into Jon’s arms.

“Oof,” Jon grunts, adjusting his stance as Rickon dangles in his arms, and his smile is wide enough to split his face. He sets Rickon down on his feet, pushing his brother’s curls out of his face with one gloved hand. “You’ve grown, little brother,” he says in surprise, and Rickon grins at him, tugging him towards the rest of their family.

Jon clasps Sansa in a tight hug, and though he knows they will be having long and difficult conversations in the hours to come, he is glad to feel her arms around him. Something in the tension of her body tells him that she has things to tell him, too. Something has happened in Winterfell while he was away. The courtyard seems quieter than usual, silent with respect and solenmity. Daenerys comes up behind him and waits as Jon bends down to greet Bran with a kiss on his forehead. Then Jon steps back and introduces them, Daenerys smiles at Sansa and gives her compliments Jon knows won’t be appreciated, and Sansa greets her like a politician. Jon barely hides his wince.

But there is another, more pressing matter weighing on his heart, and Sansa knows it, for she has turned to him even before he’s asked. “Where is she?”

Sansa lifts her shoulders slightly. “Lurking somewhere,” she says, and Jon’s brow furrows in confusion, wondering, but he doesn’t have to wait long before he has his answer.

Standing in the Godswood, snow crisp under his feet and the trees silent around him, a sudden voice comes from behind him. “You used to be taller.” He starts and turns around, and—Arya. Her voice is so much deeper, steadier than it used to be. He’d forgotten what she’d sounded like, what she looked like. She wears a cloak he immediately knows isn’t warm enough, without fur decorating the collar. She wears leather pants, not a skirt, and he can find relief in this, that even if everything else in Jon’s world has changed, Arya Stark has not. 

“How did you sneak up on me?”

Her expression doesn’t change. “How did you survive a knife through the heart?”

Jon’s chest twinges. Sansa or Bran have told her, then. “I didn’t,” he answers. And then Arya’s face finally moves, her shoulders rising as she takes a breath, and she’s running towards him just as he’s striding towards her, sweeping her up into his arms as she jumps into them. He holds her tightly to himself to make sure nothing can separate them again, and Arya’s arms are behind his neck and  _gods he’s missed her so much._

The hot sting of tears forces his eyes shut, and then he reluctantly sets her down, taking in the sight of his little sister, beaming up at him with his gloved hands cradling the sides of her face. Her hair is pulled back like his is, like their father’s used to be. And there, at her side—Needle. “You still have it.”

Arya pulls the sword out, presenting it to him, still smiling as he lets his hands fall away. “Needle,” she agrees. Once she may have added something about it being a gift from her favourite brother, because that was no secret, but—now he is one of three brothers, not four, and some wounds never stop hurting. 

Jon looks up at her. “Have you ever used it?” She must have, to still be carrying it around, after all this time. But he can’t imagine it was much help, being as small as it is. She must have outgrown it years ago.

“Once or twice,” Arya says after a heavy pause. He can see that she’s worried about his reaction, so in the silence that follows her words he shows her Longclaw, surprised when she recognizes the Valyrian steel.

“Jealous?” he teases, and Arya smiles at him.    

“Too heavy for me,” Arya responds easily.

Arya must sense the questions he’s burning to ask because she looks up at him expectantly, hands back behind her, back straight, but gods, where to begin?  _Where were you,_ _how did you survive, are you okay?_   Instead what comes out is, “I heard Littlefinger no longer haunts the shadows of Winterfell.” It’s one of the first things he’d noticed, and when he’d asked one of the bannerman they’d simply said he was gone, that the Stark sisters took care of him. Jon isn’t quite sure what that meant, but he’d like to find out.

One of Arya’s eyebrows raises, like she’s amused, or perhaps considering him. It is an odd feeling, to be searched so seriously by the little girl who used to run from her lessons. “You heard correctly,” she says eventually, and he cannot decide if the gleam in her eyes is wariness or pride. “What else did you hear, Jon?” 

Jon shakes his head morosely, looking towards the gates of Winterfell, wondering what Arya will think of Daenerys. He had worried, earlier, that perhaps she would say something to insult the older woman. Now, he is not so sure. “Not much,” he admits. “Merely that he is no longer a threat.” 

“Well,” agrees Arya, “there is that.” 

“Is he dead?” 

Arya nods, and something in her face looks strangely satisfied.  

“Good,” mutters Jon, and he can feel his younger sister’s eyes follow him as he faces her again. “I did not like him.” 

“Neither did I,” says Arya, lips quirking up, and she observes him intently.

Jon can’t keep himself from asking: “Where were you before?”

“Far away,” Arya says, and he marvels at her voice, strong and deeper than it ever was before, a slight twang of something unfamiliar in the way her vowels sound. “But all that can wait. I have missed you so much, Jon.” 

Jon’s wet cheeks sting in the cold. He chokes out a strangled laugh as he pulls Arya close again, burying his face in her hair (still dark, still Stark,) and feeling her hands fist into his cloak. “And I you, little sister,” Jon whispers, and Arya hugs him so tightly he feels as though his heart will burst through his chest.  

 

She doesn’t detach herself from his side for hours afterwards, her arm around his waist and under his cloak as he wanders from place to place, checking up on the castle he hasn’t seen in too long, leaning into his side as Sansa updates him on things which have come to pass while he’s been absent from Winterfell, resting her head on his shoulder as he tells her about Queen Daenerys, who rides dragons just like the women in Arya's favourite stories.

“You like her,” Arya accuses, but she is smiling.  

Jon rolls his eyes again. “Little sister, please,” he complains, and Arya’s grin widens.  

“You do! Sansa suspected you may.” Jon’s light-heartedness falls away at this, and he frowns anxiously, stepping closer to Arya. 

“She did? Is she—is she very angry?” 

Arya takes her time in answering, looking away from him and towards the gate, as if she can see Daenerys as they speak. Maybe she can. After Bran, after everything, Jon tries to take little at face value. 

She doesn't answer for a long moment, so Jon prompts her: “Arya?” She looks at him evenly, shrugging.  

“She was not pleased,” Arya dismisses, as if this is a small matter, and watches Jon’s face fall. “She merely wants for you to be happy, Jon, and for her family to be safe. Winterfell belongs to the Starks, and it should stay that way. Bending knees to foreign queens does not seem like a good way to ensure that.” Something in her eyes makes Jon falter, almost as if Arya is listening for things he isn’t saying, as if his next words will mean a great deal. (He has heard she and Sansa have become closer. He is glad of it. He is not envious. He is not wounded that Sansa would send his sister to spy on him. He is not, truly. No.) (Jon has never been good at lying to himself.)

“Of course I know that,” he says fiercely, stepping closer to Arya, gripping her shoulders and looking into her eyes, pleading with her to see he speaks the truth. “Winterfell belongs to the Starks, Arya, to our family, and Queen Daenerys knows that. She comes to aid us, not to burn us.” 

Arya’s eyebrow lifts again. “That is not what the people say of Daenerys Targaryen, mother of dragons,” she says slowly. “Not anywhere.”

Jon shakes his head, releases her shoulders, and hopes with all his soul that he has not forsaken his family by following his heart. “Arya, I promise you—Daenerys will not harm Winterfell, or us, or our people.” Arya looks at him closely, and then, evidently seeing something in him that he knows not of, relaxes.  

 

It’s nearing midnight, in their Lord Father's old chambers, when Arya finally removes herself from his shadow, getting up to go and converse with Bran in low tones where he sits before the crackling fire. Jon and Sansa watch her leave, Jon turning to see an odd light in Sansa’s eyes.  

“What ails you, sister?” He takes her hand in his own and she pulls her gaze to his, trying for a smile. Rickon is asleep next to her, his head pillowed on her collarbone, cocooned by her arm around his shoulders.

“I’m glad you’re back, Jon,” she replies instead of answering, and Jon smiles, presses a kiss to her fingers. He doesn’t need to say it back; she already knows. After a long moment, Sansa’s eyes return to looking at their younger siblings, Arya’s dark head bowed as she sits by Bran, knees curled and resting an elbow on the back of his chair, Bran’s face tilted up slightly towards her so that the two look like an echo of the mischievous youngsters they used to be, always plotting and scheming.  

Jon squeezes Sansa’s fingers and she looks back at him. “I’m glad you’re back,” she repeats, softer. “I have not seen Arya quite like this in all the time she has been returned to Winterfell. It's good for her, to see you.” 

Jon tilts his head in inquiry as they watch Arya’s hair fall to hide her and Bran’s faces from view, the light casting flickering shadows on the walls behind them. Sansa sighs. “She is so different, Jon. They both are.” 

“As are we,” Jon reminds her imploringly, but Sansa shakes her head, eyes distracted and downcast.  

“Not like them,” Sansa insists. “Bran… you see him.” And it's true, Jon has seen Bran. He is not much like the boy who used to climb the castle walls and wrestle with Arya behind their mother’s back. Bran looks at Jon like he knows his soul, has seen his trials, and it does not unsettle Jon as it does Sansa, but it makes him sad. (What kind of brother is he, truly, that he has missed so much of Bran’s life, that he could not protect him from a single thing?) “And Arya…” Sansa drops her voice lower and shakes her head. “I love her dearly, and I would fight and die for her, but when she came back home I did not know her, not at all.” 

Jon frowns but it is not in reproach. “You were never close,” He tries gently, but Sansa shakes her head again.  

“That may be so,” she agrees, “but I knew her. The girl she has become… sadly anything from the old Arya remains, Jon. She scares the men, sometimes.” Sansa represses a shiver and Jon feels his concern grow. “The way she looks at people… it’s not right. She knows things before you tell her, and the way she talks, it’s so careful and sly, nothing like the fiery thing she was.” Sansa shakes her head in confusion. “And, Jon, you should see her fight.” Here she pauses to smile grudgingly, lips pulling to one side. 

“She’s put our best warriors to shame, and yet she does not fight like a Northerner.” She senses his immediate query and cuts it off before he can ask. “She’s said next to nothing about where she came from, where she went… all she says is that she travelled. She travelled and trained and,” Sansa’s lips twist, “she has a list. Of people she wants to kill. Bran knows of it, somehow. I thought she was jesting, but… I’m not so sure anymore, not after seeing her fight.” Sansa takes a breath. "I'm not sure I even mind, really." Her unspoken question lingers:  _does that make me a terrible person? A terrible sister?_

“I’m sure things will settle now that we are all reunited as we should be,” Jon says, trying to be reassuring, pushing away the unease that rises with the news that his little sister wants to take lives, and squeezes her fingers. Sansa looks at their joined hands and squeezes back. "And Sansa, does it matter what Arya did to get home, as long as she did?" 

“No, and I hope things will get easier between us all,” she replies quietly, “but I don’t think anything will ever be the same. We can never gain back what we’ve lost, Jon, not even now that we’re all together. After all this time dreaming of the day when we are all together, I’m not sure we’ll ever be a family again. We don't know each other.” Her eyes glimmer faintly with moisture but Jon frowns and reaches behind her neck with his other hand, looking into Sansa’s blue Tully eyes fiercely with his grey Stark ones. 

“Don’t say that,” he says, gentler than they used to be together as children. “We might not be the children we once were, Sansa, but we will always be family. Different is not always wrong, change is not always worse.” His eyes soften and Sansa silently leans her cheek into his hand, now cupping the side of her face.  

“We are  _family_ ,” Jon repeats, and over by the fire Arya and Bran look over and smile like they know all the world’s secrets. “We fought for our family, remember? We fought for each other. We will not lose each other now.”

 

Most of the time when Jon looks at Arya he can still see the little sister he left behind so long ago. She looks fairly similar, she hasn’t grown too much: she wears her hair like he does, like their father did, and every time he sees her his heart swells until it feels like it will burst out of his chest. 

Most of the time. 

Then Jon walks into the great hall, and his eyes are immediately drawn to the bloodstain on the cobblestone. His men stop short too, and Davos's eyebrows shoot up. Sansa sees where he’s looking. “Oh, yes,” she says. “Littlefinger was executed here.”

Jon stares up at her. “What?” 

“For treason,” Sansa elaborates coolly. “He was responsible for a great many crimes against our family.” Somehow, Jon knows she doesn’t just mean against _her_.

He’s not unhappy the man’s dead, but… “Who did it?”

Sansa glances at him over her shoulder as she leads him to the table. “I passed the sentence; Arya swung the sword.”

At that, Jon falters. Davos, beside him, very nearly does too. “Arya…? You let our little sister kill a man?”

Sansa regards him. “Don’t be naïve, Jon,” she chides. Something in her voice is hard and uncompromising, and Jon knows he must tread carefully. Sansa may be unnerved by Arya, but she is fiercely protective of her too. Whatever the sisters withstood together while he was away has forged bonds of steel, even if they might still not truly understand each other. “Our sister did not survive all those years without shedding a little blood.” 

Jon tries to swallow his further questions. Ned Stark taught his sons that whoever passed the sentence should swing the sword, but he never extended those lessons to his daughters, who were forced to learn life’s lessons from far crueller people, men and women both. Jon himself is no saint. Ned Stark's honor did not age well. “I do not ask out of judgement,” Jon says quietly. “I simply wish to understand.”

Sansa lowers herself into his seat. “There is nothing to understand,” she answers simply. “Arya slashed Littlefinger’s throat and he bled out on the floor. He can never hurt our family again.” Jon looks at her, at the steel in her eyes, and forces a smile when he nods. 

 

He can hear the whispers, what some of the men say. They call them the wolves of Winterfell, Jon the white and Arya the dark. At times Sansa is the red wolf, at times Rickon is the wild wolf or the little wolf, and at times Bran is the winged wolf, for the way ravens rest on his shoulders. He knows that Robb abhorred the relation between wolves and the Starks, but he can’t help but feel almost proud, almost relieved by it. He is not alone, he is not forever an outsider: Arya’s grey eyes are still steely (like his) and her hair is still dark (like his) and she is still a wolf (like he is) and something in him is glad of it.  

He sees her, one night, sitting by the fire, Ghost by her side. Her fingers are winding through his fur and as Jon stops short of entering the room, Arya buries her face in Ghost’s fur. Jon slowly retreats, telling a guard that no one is to enter the room, and tries to shake of the feeling of grief that overtakes him, the feeling he has as though he’s seen something he wasn’t supposed to. 

Bran has told them lovely Summer has passed on, Rickon lost Shaggydog to Ramsay, and Sansa of course lost Lady so many years ago, but Arya hasn’t talked of Nymeria. He remembers how closely their wolves all reflected them and he wonders what Nymeria would be like now.  

 

Bran gives them news from the far north only a week after Jon returned to Winterfall. The Wall has fallen. The Knight King has a dragon. Daenery’s eyes shutter when she hears of Viscerion’s fate, and Jon feels pulled to her side, to comfort her as she did him, but he knows she would not appreciate it here, at a war council. They send ravens to all their allies, Sansa’s quill worn down to its nub by the time they are finished.

“Now what?” Arya has appeared at his side, and Jon lifts his arm so she can slot into his side.

“Now we wait, and we prepare,” Jon sighs.

“He will be here within two weeks,” Bran warns, and Daenerys sends him a worried glance.

“Will we be ready?” Sansa’s hands are fisted in her skirt.

“We have to be.” Rickon is too young to join war councils, but he would not hear of being excluded and Jon would not send him away.

“Aye,” Jon agrees. He meets Daenery’s eyes again. “We have to be.”  

 

(Bran tells him something else, too. Something terrible.)

(His father—His mother—everything he knew is a _lie_.)

(“You will always be my brother,” Bran says. “I won’t tell them, not until you’re ready. But you should know, Jon, that they'll feel the same. You're our brother, now and always.”)

 

His days are spent showing Daenerys the north, organising fighting men and women, rallying the men and greeting old friends. Tormund nearly bowls him off his feet, and Sam's embrace is a comfort Jon never thought he'd know again. He rides Rhaegal and though he knows he shouldn't, he kisses Daenerys in the cold, smiling despite himself. At Winterfell, they prepare for a war they don't know how to win. In Jon's heart, he wages a different sort of war altogether. 

 

Theon’s arrival at Winterfell comes only two days after Bran’s announcement. He’d already been en route to Winterfell, even without knowing how dire their need was. Jon isn’t there to welcome him, doesn’t hear him when he says _I’d like to fight for Winterfell, if you’ll have me, Lady Sansa._

Jon first sees Theon in the training yard, staring at the walls around him with something in his eyes that Jon recognizes from his own reflection: sadness at what time has done to a far kinder past. “Theon!” Theon jumps a bit and turns to face him.

“King Jon,” he says, hurridly bowing, but Jon shakes his head and hurries to meet him, pulling him into a gruff hug.

“I didn’t know you were coming,” he says. 

Theon, still glancing at the floor, shrugs. He doesn’t seem like he wants to say anything more. Jon clasps his shoulder. “I’m glad you’re here, Greyjoy. Thank you. House Stark is lucky to have you.” Theon looks up at that and smiles crookedly, the corner of his mouth twitching up, and Jon is glad to see that some of the light Theon had lost has returned to him. 

 

Their council of foreigners, bastards and broken things cobble together a plan over the coming days. Theon volunteers to protect Bran, who’s insisting on being bait, and Rickon looks at him warily from behind Sansa but Jon only nods and thanks him. Theon needs this, this chance at redemption. Bran has forgiven him, and Rickon doesn’t know him well enough to hate him, but Theon’s search for atonement remains. 

When he offers, Sansa’s eyes flash with fear and she takes a step closer to him, barely stopping herself from reaching out and grabbing his sleeve. Jon sees them at supper, sitting next to each other with soft eyes and closed mouths, and he is glad that Sansa has such a companionship with him even after everything. Rickon has been following Sansa's lead over the last few days, and though he doesn't remember Theon well, he takes his hand and thanks him for watching over Bran. Theon's eyes go watery and Rickon fidgets uncomfortably, but he smiles at Theon nervously nonetheless. 

Arya doesn’t speak to Theon, which Jon is sure pains the man, but she simply doesn’t have anything to say to him. She can’t quite forgive him for betraying Robb. Forgiveness, Jon has been learning, does not come very easily to his fierce sister. Yet neither does she truly seem to hate him, or wish him harm. 

Theon watches her with worry, with sadness in his eyes, seeing the sharp way she carries herself and the stillness that promises violence in her movements. Theon, for all his faults, grew up with Arya. He watched her grow, and he taught her how to notch an arrow. To see her now, so hard and full of danger, is just as hard on Theon as it is on Jon.

(But there is pride there, too. For both of them. They both mourn the loss of who she was and can never be again, but they both rejoice in her determination to survive.)

 

As the Long night approaches, so do their allies. Edd's cynical commentary is a welcome familiarty. Wintertown have been accepting refugees for months, the bite of winter driving them closer to the Starks. Now Sansa sends them south, away from the battle to come, overseeing their exit with a straight spine and squared jaw. Theon is often at her side, and though she does not soften, his presence strengthens her and she leans almost imperceptibly towards him.

Bran convinces Meera Reed to go with the civilians only because they need a leader, and because Theon promises to protect Bran with his life, and because Bran refuses to change his mind, begging and pleading despite her anger with him. Jon doesn’t know the girl who accompanied Bran home very well, nor do his other siblings, but she promises to protect the people and Jon believes her.

Rickon is to go with them, seeking refuge until it is safe to return— _if_ it is safe to return. Rickon is even angrier than Meera at being told he cannot be at Winterfell for the Long Night.

“Listen to your family, pup,” Tormund says, as gentle as he can be, but Rickon only snarls at the man he's grown so close to, his knuckles white from how tight he’s clenching his fist. Sansa reaches out to placate him but Rickon turns away from her.

“I will not flee,” he snaps. “You told me we are family. You told me we are Starks. We do not run. I will not hide.”

Arya stays silent. She does not know Rickon well. She has been teaching him how to shoot arrows, and she gifted him with a dagger, but she can hardly remember the little boy from all those years ago. She loves him regardless.

Jon steps forward and cups Rickon’s cheeks. “Rickon,” he says sternly. “You are the future of House Stark. We need you with our people. We need you to survive. You will make us all proud.” Rickon throws him off.

“I am not a _child!”_

Arya speaks up, then. “You will be no help to anyone if you’re dead.” Rickon turns to her, furious, but Arya doesn’t flinch. “You want to be brave? You want to help our family? Then go with our people. _That_ is brave, Rickon. It would be easy, to stay here with us, to leave them on their own. But House Stark needs you. And when the Long Night is over, you will come back here, and you will know that you saved countless lives when you led them South.” Bran is silent, which is worrying in itself, and when Rickon looks to him for support he finds none so turns back to Arya, his chest heaving, his eyes filling with tears.

Sansa pulls him towards her, and this time their youngest brother goes willingly into her embrace. “I don’t want you to die,” he sobs. Sansa, who Jon had asked to accompany Rickon, strokes his hair and shushes him. She won’t be going south. She will be staying at Winterfell, and Jon would not dare try to tell her otherwise. When the long Night comes, however it does, Sansa will face it, just like Jon, just like Arya. He has tried to convince them otherwise, but it was a losing battle from the moment he opened his mouth. Sansa and Arya are nobody's to command.

 

Their family is scarred, but it survives. As the night approaches, Sansa and Theon lean on each other in silent support, and Daenerys and Jon grip each other’s hands and look into each other’s eyes. Arya has disappeared somewhere, twirling an unfamiliar weapon in her hands, and Bran warged into some unknown creature hours ago, his hands clasped tightly in his lap. 

“Winter is truly coming, now,” Jon murmurs, surrounded by a castle readying itself for battle. Men from the south and men from the north, all of them preparing to face death.

“And we will greet it with fire and blood,” Daenerys answers fiercely, unflinching, and Jon squeezes her fingers. “This is not the end of our story, Jon Snow.” 


	3. lessons learned right here at home (without love the light divides alone)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here it is! the final instalment. it's a big one. I hope it lives up to the first two chapters. please enjoy, and let me know what you think! :)

When Jon stumbles into the Godswood, Bran is not the first thing he sees. It’s the bodies. All across the ground, they lay sprawled and still, torn apart by the Night King’s army. He’s no stranger to corpses, long having grown used to the sight of the dead, but here, under the trees of the Old Gods, it looks sacrilegious and inhuman, horrifying and not quite real. Places like these were never meant to see times like this. Jon catches sight of a familiar figure and crashes to his knees, gasping, thinking _no, no,_ but lacking the energy to say it aloud, turning the body with his hands and choking when he sees Theon’s closed eyes.

His hands rip off their gloves and then fumble to Theon’s neck, looking for a pulse. “Please,” Jon murmurs, _please,_ and then he slumps forward with a rush of relief when he feels Theon’s blood flowing feebly under his fingers. “Thank the gods,” he whispers. This might have broken Sansa's heart. Gingerly Jon props Theon up, careful not to jostle the wound in his stomach.

“He’ll be alright, Jon.” Bran’s voice is eerier than usual, almost disaffected by what surrounds him. Jon stumbles back up to his feet, reluctant to leave Theon but desperate to see his little brother. As Jon turns, the sight that greets him has him faltering to a stop.

Bran rests in his chair, looking healthy and hale, but Arya sits on the ground beside him, with her head resting on Bran’s knees. “Arya,” Jon breathes, and rushes forward, nearly tripping in his haste. She’s staring ahead blankly as if she can’t see him, and when Jon falls to his knees in front of her and grasps her bloody face, she only lifts her eyes slowly.

“Oh, Gods. Are you alright? Hey, what happened?” She doesn’t answer. Bran is holding one of her hands, and her other hand is gripping a double-bladed dagger. Jon’s brow furrows as he catches sight of it. What’s she even doing up here?

“Arya did it,” Bran says. Jon looks up at him, confused, keeping his hands cradling their sister’s face. “She killed the Night King,” Bran continues, looking at Arya with fondness. “Arya brought the dawn.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Jon breathes. He can hardly believe it, that it’s all over, it’s finally over, but if anyone were to do it... He turns his gaze back to Arya, searching her face for any hint of recognition. She sees him, she must, but she’s quiet and distant. He leans forward and presses a kiss to her head, gathering her up in his arms and tipping her forward into his chest, into a hug, reaching up with one hand to grasp Bran’s fingers. “You’re alright?” Bran nods in reply, watching them.

“Theon needs a Maester,” he says softly, and his voice is losing some of its detached tone. He doesn’t sound so empty anymore, and it’s a relief. “He saved me. He bought Arya time.” At that, he looks into Jon’s eyes, concerned. He seems to war with himself, and then he says: “He’s a good man. Or, he’s trying to be.”

“I know,” Jon answers. He exhales. “Come on. We need… we need to get out of here.” Slowly, painstakingly, he raises himself up off the ground, keeping Arya in his arms. He sways once he’s up, but Arya is still unresponsive against his chest and he can’t afford to collapse now.

“She’ll be okay.” Bran’s voice is quiet, but heavy with meaning.

“What’s wrong with her?” Jon has seen the light fade from men’s eyes, both during and after battle. He’s seen them get lost in their heads. But this is something else. Something darker, and emptier, and it scares him to see his little sister so devoid of life.

Bran shakes his head. “She’ll find her way back, she’s just… lost, right now.” Jon adjusts Arya, raising one hand to brush some of her sweaty, bloody hair away from her face.

“We’ll just have to help her remember the way, then,” He says decisively, and Bran smiles at him.

 

Jon still has an arm around Arya’s shoulders when Sansa comes shooting towards them, her red hair streaming behind her in a fiery curtain. “Jon!” As she gets closer she stumbles, staring at their sister. “Arya!” They’re only a few paces out of the Godswood, heading for the centre of Winterfell. Theon has been carried off by a pair of Wildlings headed to find a Maester, and Bran has been moved by a soldier so that he sits at the entrance to the Godswood, not quite immersed in the chaos of the castle but not hidden in the woods either. “Jon!”    

Arya’s head shifts at Sansa’s voice, the first sign of recognition he’s seen in her. She’s standing on her own feet, following blindly where he leads her, but her mind is still far away. Jon gasps Sansa’s name as she comes crashing into him, her arms around his neck, disregarding the blood on his clothes and the dirt on his face. She’s careful not to jostle Arya, and when she pulls back her fingers go to Arya’s face, frantically searching Arya’s eyes for awareness like he had in the Godswood.

“Sansa, thank Gods,” Jon breathes, and Sansa looks up at him. “The crypts—”

“Weren’t safe.” Sansa cuts him off. “No. But… we made it. Some of us.” Jon’s knees nearly buckle. Gods, they’d been sent into—sent into a graveyard. What were they _thinking_? He should have insisted that everyone leave Winterfell with Meera and Rickon, he should have… Sansa reaches out one hand to touch his cheek, and he pulls himself out of his head.

“Thank the gods you’re safe,” he rasps. Sansa smiles at him, frayed at the edges.

“Safe,” she echoes in a whisper, like she doesn’t remember what it means but she’s interested in relearning. “Yes. We… we all are, now, aren’t we? How did you do it?”

Jon knows immediately what she’s asking, and he shakes his head. “I didn’t. I played a part, as did Bran, as did Theon, but Arya… Arya killed the Night King. She brought the dawn.” Sansa’s face is alight with wonder, looking at him in amazement, and then she gathers Arya into her arms. It still doesn’t feel quite real. He’d been fighting the dead for so long, and this Long Night had felt like it would never end—the battles, the Others who’d come storming towards him and driven him away from those at his side, the dragon he’d distracted so his little sister could live just a moment longer.

“Sansa,” Arya murmurs, and Sansa pulls back, gripping her shoulders. Arya’s voice sounds fainter than Jon has ever heard it. “Is… did it… are you…”

“We’re safe,” Sansa says firmly. “You did it, Arya.” Arya blinks at her, vulnerable and uncomprehending, and then she folds in half and vomits blood and bile onto the muddy snow at their feet. Sansa hisses in alarm, and then Jon is fighting his lethargy to lunge forward as Arya’s eyes roll back into her head and she slumps downwards. He manages to catch her just before she hits the ground, and Sansa’s eyes are frantic when they meet his but he has no answers to her questions. He has only the sister in his arms and the sister at his side, the exhaustion in his bones and his eyes, the light of the dawn setting Sansa’s hair aflame.

“We need a Maester,” he grunts, and he can see the way Sansa gathers all of her emotions together, her spine straightening and her eyes going steely. She’s always been so much better at that than he is.  _Stark,_ he thinks, _like her mother. Like her father._

“We will not lose her now,” she says grimly, already turning towards the castle, “I will not lose _any_ of you now. I intend for us  _all_ to live long lives, now that this has been dealt with.” And he knows it’s not the time, and he knows Sansa’s words are only going to make it harder when he inevitably has to leave and fight another battle, but he can’t stop himself from laughing, loud with relief and only a touch of hysteria.

 

Arya wakes up when Sam presses a hot blade against her thigh, unconscious one moment and then _screaming_ the next. Sansa, sitting at her side, rushes to grab her hand. “Arya, Arya, hold still, you’re safe—” Arya’s thrashing only stops when Jon, standing behind her, presses down on her shoulders. He has to push down hard, her weakened muscles still straining against his fingers.

Her eyes clear, slowly, and Jon relaxes his hold slightly, trying not to dwell on that horrific scream. If he never has to hear either of his sisters scream again, he will die happy.

“This will hurt, Lady Arya,” Sam says tightly, looking up at her briefly. Arya’s injuries aren’t as bad as some of the other men’s, but they’re worse than Jon’s and Sam looks worried. Gilly is there, too, with a needle and thread. Her hands are already bloodstained.

Arya snarls, and Sansa says faintly, “Don’t call her that.” She doesn’t usually encourage Arya’s rejection of propriety, but for now she will make an exception and Jon can find it in himself to be fond of them for overcoming all that used to drive them apart.

“Fucking do it, then,” Arya spits, and Sam nods shortly. Arya doesn’t scream again, but she throws her head back and clenches her teeth, and Sansa cries for her, helpless and hurt. It’s a relief when she falls unconscious again, after staying awake for far longer than Sam had expected.

When Sam’s finished tending to her injuries, Sansa smooths the bloodied blanket over Arya’s torso and Jon brushes away hair from her eyes, and the two eldest Starks meet each other’s eyes over their sister’s prone form, seeing the same horror reflected in each other’s faces. Perhaps, Jon thinks, they are both remembering Arya when she was still a child. All he can think of are the times she would come running to him with scraped knees, bruised elbows, wild hair and a bright smile that he could always coax out of hiding.

Arya’s hands, Jon sees when he holds them, are as scarred as his own. Maybe more so. Little nicks, cuts, caught by the edges of blades and worn from hard work. He wonders, not for the first time, where she’d been all those long years away from home. She hasn’t said. Sansa doesn’t know either, though she knows more than Jon does. Their littlest sister, and her life is a mystery to them.

“Will she be alright?” Sansa’s voice is so quiet it’s nearly a whisper, like she’s worried that expressing her fears will make them real.

“Of course,” Jon replies, gruff because he can’t let himself be anything else, can’t or he’ll fall apart. “She’s Arya. She’s strong.”

“Strongest person I know,” Sansa murmurs.

Jon reaches out, brushes Sansa’s cheek with his thumb. “Starks are hard to kill,” he promises her, “and Stark women don’t bow to anything, not even death.” Maybe it’s a foolish thing to tell her, when he so recently came to Winterfell with a Queen in tow, but it’s the truest thing he can say. Sansa may call Daenerys Queen because she has to, maybe one day even because she chooses to, but she won’t ever bow to her. She won’t ever get on her knees; she won’t ever lower herself below anyone again. Jon wouldn’t want her any other way.

Tormund says Jon spent too much time away from kneelers. Jon thinks Sansa spent too much time among them.

His sisters are fierce, unyielding and unapologetic, and it has made them stronger than anyone he has ever met or will ever meet. They have survived trauma and horror that he cannot imagine, and if that means they will never again bow to anyone, Jon will gladly, proudly accept that. They protect each other and themselves, his sisters, and Jon’s pride and his sadness war with each other every time he thinks of who they’ve become in the years he spent away from their sides.

 

When she comes to him after everything, Daenerys watches him like she’s worried he’ll turn her away.

Perhaps he should. Yet for all that Jon can wish he was a better man, he doesn’t see a choice that keeps his honour intact. She’s his aunt. He loves her. He could reject her, and betray his heart, or he could follow his heart and betray his ancestors. Betrayal and love and honour, and he isn’t sure what those words even mean anymore.

“Jon,” Daenerys croaks, with red-rimmed eyes, and Jon’s heart twinges and he reaches out for her. It’s not about his aunt, in the moment, or her throne or his honour. It’s about someone he cares for being in pain, and him having the ability to lessen that pain, even if it’s just for a moment. Lord Stark may have been disgusted that Jon feels… what he feels… for his aunt, but Ned raised his sons to be kind before they were anything else.

They don’t lie together. Daenerys sits beside Jon on a seat in front of a crackling fire, his arms wound around her waist and her head pillowed on his chest. They don’t speak. The grief is too fresh, too raw. Daenerys lost a man she loved, Jorah of House Mormont. She had to see her youngest dragon reanimated and defiled. Nearly half her armies are gone. She came North for him and for a land she had yet to win over, and now she has lost so much.

In the light that follows the Long Night, Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow sit quietly and allow themselves to mourn, to find comfort in the presence of another.

In the same castle, Sansa sits by Theon’s side and holds his hand, whispers secrets against his scarred skin, and orders him not to die, not now, not after everything.

In the courtyard, Bran takes the eyes of a raven and circles Rickon and Meera until they take notice of him, holding out their arms for him to rest upon, lifting Rickon’s chin up with his beak.

And in the infirmary, Arya Stark opens her eyes to find Gendry Waters at her bedside, his eyes closed in sleep and his hands resting on his hammer.

The Long Night is over, but they have yet to heal.

 

Time passes slowly. Daenerys doesn’t fight it when Sansa pushes for time to let their armies rest, seeing the reason in her arguments and too tired to fight for a mortal throne so soon after battling dead men, and Jon has to fight tears as he lights a pyre holding Edd’s body. So many faces he knew, lying grey and cold in the flames. There’s not a dry face, the day they light the pyres. Everyone has lost someone. Some people have lost everyone. Feasts will come later, revelery and celebration and pride will come later, but in the cold whiteness of the daytime people mourn. They weep and wail, and then they rebuild with steady hands and steady hearts.

Theon has yet to wake, and Sansa visits him every morning and evening, wringing her hands in her skirts but refusing to let tears fall until she knows whether he will live or die. She thinks: porcelain, ivory, steel. She thinks: _don’t leave, don’t leave, don’t leave._

Arya runs. She runs from the titles that people assign her ( _Lightbringer, Nightslayer, Dawnbreaker, Saviour of Winterfell and Westeros)_ and from the light-eyed smith who loves her.

* * *

 

In the early morning, before Winterfell wakes, Arya twirls a plain wooden staff in the courtyard and Jon watches her, his heart aching at the sight of his little sister so frighteningly trained in the art of killing, yet fiercely proud at her prowess in the skill of surviving. She falters at but pushes past the pain from her wrapped ribs and stitched gashes, moving with a single-minded determination that worries him.

“Arya,” Jon calls out, on the third morning he watches her spin in circles on the snow. She doesn’t stop, turning in place with closed eyes, the staff a blur in her hands. “Arya.” He crosses the courtyard to grab her shoulders, frowning at the anger he sees in her eyes when she opens them.

“What, Jon,” she snaps, wrenching her shoulders out of his hands, ignoring the pain he knows the action would have caused.

Jon hesitates. What can he say? She won’t stop training, and he doesn’t want to sound like he doesn’t think she should fight. “I’m worried,” he eventually settles on. “About you.”

Arya steps back and squares her jaw. “There’s nothing to be worried about,” she replies flatly. “The Long Night is over. Your armies are recuperating before the long journey south, to claim your Queen a shiny throne.” Her words are spiteful, laced with poison, but her tone is flat and emotionless. Jon frowns, reaching out a gloved hand, but Arya sidesteps his touch.

“Please come inside,” Jon pleads.

Arya shakes her head. “Go away, Jon.”

Jon takes a breath. Then he draws Longclaw. “Spar with me,” he says. Arya’s eyes are expressionless. “Like we used to. Please?”

She doesn’t move for a moment, and Jon wonders what the hell she’s thinking, wonders when he stopped being able to tell, and then she brings the staff down towards his head. From there it’s as if all her anger is unleashed on him, as he fumbles to dodge and duck the arc of her staff. She deflects and parries each of his slashes, stepping around his slashes and ducking under the sweeping of his blade, and though the staff she holds would be easy to break with enough force, it never hits the edge of his blade.

Jon has never fought anyone like her before. As the fight continues, the sky above them growing whiter, Arya’s eyes become somewhat unhinged, the deadness in them replaced by a light of hysteria. Her actions become more frantic, more dangerous—Jon stumbles back, and back again, as she picks up the pace. And then, finally, he is swept onto his back, her staff pointed at his throat.

Her chest is heaving, but the actions are restrained, her breaths too short to fill up her lungs. Her hair is falling around her, undone from its usual neatness. Cautiously, Jon lifts himself up on his elbows. Arya’s staff doesn’t move. Jon grows still, and then carefully raises his hands placatingly. “You win,” he says softly, and it takes a moment for Arya to hear the words but he sees the moment that she comes back to herself, her face twitching as if she’s confused, the staff abruptly lowered and then swept under her arm.

“Jon,” she breathes, faint.

Jon lifts himself up, eyeing her. “Little sister,” he replies. The courtyard around them is quiet but coming alive with the sounds of smallfolk waking up and begin to bustle about. The walls are pocked with scars from battle, from Boltons and from wights and Ironborn fire. Arya drops the staff on the ground, letting it fall from her hands. Jon is moving as soon as it does, stepping close to her and drawing her to his chest, his hand cradling her head. “Hey, it’s alright,” he says gently.  

“It’s not,” Arya mutters.

He pulls back, and she looks up at him, still hugging him. He wishes he knew what she was thinking. “You’re not alone, Arya,” he says softly, and there’s a naked vulnerability in Arya’s eyes, her face open and raw.

Arya’s breath hitches. “I’m sorry,” she says, choked, and Jon lowers his head to drop a kiss on her forehead, careful of her still-healing bruises and gashes.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” he promises her, and though he isn’t sure what she’s referring to, he means it.

“I’ve done terrible things,” Arya continues, her voice desperate. “I’ve killed so many people, Jon. I’ve hurt people. Innocent people.”

“I have too,” Jon reminds her, but Arya shakes her head.

“I’ve—I’m not good, Jon, not like you are. I’m not who I was. I’ve done terrible things and I’ve enjoyed them, and I—and I don’t know how to do this, I don’t know how to be a Stark anymore, I don’t know how to be a sister—”

“Hey.” Jon waits until she meets his eyes, his heart breaking at the sight of tears on her lashes. “There is nothing you could do that could make me stop loving you. We’re family, Arya. Us and Sansa and Bran and Rickon, all of us. We love you. You don’t have to be anything but what you are—you just have to be Arya. You just have to be _here,_ with us.”

Arya makes a noise in her throat, half a scoff and half a sob. “I don’t belong here, Jon.” Her dark words hang in the air between them, _I’ve done terrible things and I’m not a good person,_ but all he can think about is all the times Arya used to say the same phrase, back when she was nine years old and unafraid of anything but her family’s rejection.

“You will always belong with me,” Jon answers, smiling at her. The words are familiar, and come to his lips just as easily as they used to. “You will always belong with _us_. We’re your family. We will always love you, and you will always have a home with us.”

 

Arya stops running, after that.

Jon had noticed the way she kept escaping to the shadows every time someone came near, had noticed the coldness in her eyes when people whispered   _Nightslayer,_ and the way she didn’t let anyone touch her, but after that day in the courtyard things begin to change. She sits boldly next to the Hound at suppertime, and ignores the man’s incredulous stare and the eyes of the crowd on her back. She stops clinging to the walls and starts joining Jon at the war council, and when Bran looks to her with knowledge in his eyes Arya only raises an eyebrow.

Jon sees her and Gendry in the half-broken forges, with their arms looped loosely around each other, her head resting lightly on his shoulder, and there’s a story there but he’s content to let them be, hoping she will tell him by herself in her own time. Arya looks comfortable with the smith turned warrior, looks relaxed and safe in a way that seems unfamiliar to her, and Jon would never interfere with something that is bringing light back into Arya’s eyes, even if he can’t help but wonder why Gendry never told him they were familiar with each other. They’ll tell him eventually, and he is content to wait until they do.

Arya sticks close to Sansa, too, always by her side or in her shadow. It eases a burden on Sansa’s shoulders that Jon doesn’t think she’d even realised she’d been carrying. Jon sees them sitting together, whispering, exchanging glances, and is happy to see them easing their doubts together. Some nights, he even hears them laughing.

And with him, Arya makes it a point to remind him that he belongs with her, too, just as she does with him. She nestles herself under his arm and knocks shoulders with him, she cheers with the men when they’re trying to push him into drinking, she rolls her eyes when he broods, and slowly he begins to see pieces of the old Arya peeking through the new.

 

The day that Rickon comes home, they are ready to greet the Wintertown citizens in castle’s the slowly rebuilding courtyard. Sansa spent all morning wringing her hands, anxious even despite Bran’s platitudes. Meera and Rickon come through the gates first, their eyes wide as they take in the destruction around them, though it is already an improvement to what it was, but their backs are straight and their heads unbowed. Jon is so proud he could burst with it, but cannot help the sadness at seeing his littlest and wildest brother forced into becoming a leader quite so young.

The picture of Rickon’s stoicism only lasts until he catches sight of his family. “Jon! Sansa!” He comes running towards them, flinging himself into Sansa’s embrace, stretching one arm out to snare Jon and tug him closer, too. Jon laughs as Rickon pulls them close, until the three of them are intertwined, their red hair stark against his dark furs. Rickon pulls back, searching their faces for injury just as they search his, and his eyes are wild with relief at finding them well, the intensity on his face nearly overwhelming. 

Rickon then turns to Bran, falling to his knees so he can pull his brother into a hug, nearly lifting Bran out of the seat with the strength of his arms and making Bran grunt in surprise, his eyes alight with joy. The youngest Stark greets Arya with no less love, lifting her entirely off the ground and swinging her around, taller than she is but still skinnier. Arya laughs, louder than she has in years, and Sansa is watching them like she’s remembering that light still exists in the world, and love is still a part of her life.

Jon wraps an arm around his sister’s shoulders and together they watch Rickon twirling Arya through the air, Bran’s laughter mingling with theirs and creating clouds of white in the air. For just a moment, their family is all that exists in the world.

 

But still, he cannot escape it: Ned Stark was not his father. Bran’s revelation haunts him at every corner. Jon’s time is running out, the closer they get to the day of their Southern departure, and though he fears sharing the secret like he fears little else, he knows he must. He cannot die without telling his family the truth— _all_ of his family.

Jon tells the Starks before he tells Daenerys. It is only fair, and he barely even thinks about it. They are his family, and he did not fight so hard for them only to forego them when he needs them most. They deserve the truth from him, and he would never deny it.

They gather in the Godswood, per his request, and at seeing his nervousness Sansa reaches out and takes his hand.

The truth is hard to reveal, but easy to say: Ned Stark was not his father, and that is the crux of the matter. That matters more to him than who his parents really were, both of them long dead and gone. _I’m not a Stark._ Four words, and the crumbling of everything he thought he could trust in the world.

Sansa and Arya react with identical outrage, Rickon frowning at him in utter confusion, but Jon takes a breath and continues on anyway. His parents were Lyanna and Rhaegar, his parents were wed. Eddard Stark, that man of such renowned honour, lied to everyone in Westeros— and his secrets almost died with him.

“Swear you won’t tell a soul of this,” Jon begs, and there is a frightening darkness in Arya’s eyes but she snarls _of course we won’t_ like she’s angry with him and even Rickon nods, solemn.

“You’re still my brother, Jon,” Arya says to him. “You were my brother when you gave me Needle, and you are my brother now.”

Jon swallows. “Thank you,” he says hoarsely.

Sansa is frowning. “Jon,” she says, and he knows what she’s going to say before she does, “If Lyanna and Rhaegar truly wed, that makes you the heir to the Iron Throne.”

Jon shakes his head. “I don’t want it,” he says, and his voice sounds desperate even to his own ears. Sansa flattens her lips, her eyes clouded and her mind racing.

“You’ll always be my brother,” she says after a pause, and Jon tries not to feel too relieved. Bran is still looking at him reassuringly. “I know I was unkind to you as a child, but… I hope that, in the time since then, I have not given you reason to think I would stop loving you now. You’re as much Ned Stark’s child as any of us, Jon, and your parents don’t change that.”

Rickon steps forward and grabs Jon’s hand. “You’re my _brother_ ,” he growls. A year ago, he would have said it uncertainly, unsure of himself and unsure of Jon. Now, he defends Jon from himself as fiercely as any wolf, and his words are sharp with purpose. “You don’t get to choose not to be.”

“Never,” Jon says roughly, voice thick, feeling struck. “Rickon, I would _never_. You—you will always be my brother, too. I would never… _choose_ not to be.”

“Good.” Rickon’s eyes gleam, pleased but still fierce, and when he glances at Sansa his expression softens.

“We love you.” Bran speaks up, his voice soft and light. “You’ll always be our family, Jon Snow. You’re as much a Stark as any of us. We’re pack, the five of us.”

“The last of the Starks,” Arya adds, her voice quieter than usual but no less strong.

And Jon may not be Ned Stark’s son, not in truth, but Lyanna was just as much a Stark as Ned, if not more. Ned was raised with Robert Baratheon. Lyanna was raised in the North. Before learning what secrets Ned kept from him, Jon was half a Stark, and now he is still half a Stark: merely a different Stark. Jon’s history is a tapestry of travel. He was born in the South, he lived in the True North, but his home and his family will always be at Winterfell.

(His mother was a Stark. His father—his real father, the one who raised him—was also a Stark. Jon may not have the name, but he knows who he is.)

Jon wraps his arms around his little brother, closing his eyes, and Rickon’s arms come together behind his back. Sansa places a hand on Jon’s back a moment later, her touch gentle but unyielding. Arya nestles herself in Jon’s side, adding her arms to Rickon’s, and Bran watches them all with clear eyes and a glowing smile that grows and grows.

* * *

 

The next morning, Theon wakes up. Sansa is the only one in the room at the time. When he opens his eyes, the first word he speaks is her name. Sansa, who has remained so steadfast and so strong, bursts into tears at the sound of his voice, winding her arms carefully around his neck and burying her face in the crook of his shoulder. Theon, bewildered and distressed, raises a clumsy hand to her back, shushing her, only to see Arya crashing into the room, drawn by the sound of Sansa’s sob.

There is a moment of stillness, Theon’s confused eyes wide open as he takes in the sight of Arya, scarred and still healing but alive, and more open with her facial expressions than she was. She nods at him. Theon slowly nods back. Then Arya leaves them, closes the door, and lets them have a few hours together, undisturbed, before she appears at Jon’s elbow and telling him the news.

Jon goes straight to Theon’s rooms, taking his leave from Daenerys with a kiss to her hands. He knocks at the door, opening it only when Theon’s feeble _come in_ can be heard, and then crosses the room to sit on the chair Sansa has vacated in favour of sitting next to Theon on the bed, with her legs touching the floor but her hands holding his.

“Theon,” Jon says, a true smile spreading across his face. “We didn’t know if you’d make it.”

Theon tries to smile at him. “Almost didn’t, from what I heard,” he replies, nodding at Sansa.

Rickon, who followed Jon into the room, shakes his head at that. “What is dead may never die,” he says quietly, “but rises again, harder and stronger.” A silence falls upon the room, Theon’s wide eyes staring at the boy, who looks timidly back. Jon stares too, but Rickon doesn’t falter under the weight of their attention. Rickon, and Bran, have the most right of all of them to hate Theon for all he’s done, but Rickon doesn’t look angry. Jon isn’t quite sure what his little brother is thinking, and he reaches out, glad when Rickon steps closer to him. 

“Those are Greyjoy words,” Sansa says when the silence stretches, “but they are true for wolves, too.” She squeezes Theon’s hands. “You are both.”

Theon turns his stare to her. “Sansa, I—” When he tries to pull his hands away, Sansa holds them tighter.

“No,” she says, voice clear. Her eyes are only faintly ringed by red. “You are a Stark, Theon. You may not have our name, but you are my family.” Then she pauses, hesitant. “So long as you want to be, of course.”

“I—Sansa.” Theon’s eyes show his helplessness. Jon takes pity on him and clasps his shoulder, leaning forward from where he sits on the chair, squeezing to show Theon he agrees with Sansa’s words. (No matter Theon’s crimes— and there are many of them—Jon will never be able to stop thinking of him as a brother of sorts. Theon has now saved two of Jon’s siblings, and Jon thinks Robb wouldn’t be angry at him for forgiving their father’s former hostage when his penance has been paid so highly.) Rickon stands behind Jon, with his arms draped loosely over Jon’s shoulders, playing at the leather on Jon’s jerkin, uncharacteristically silent.

“We can never repay you for what you did for Bran,” Jon says. “You’re a hero, now, Theon Greyjoy.” He pauses to smile, thinking somewhat ruefully of those far-off days when Robb would swing wooden swords and Theon would scare them all with stories of Ironborn legends, when Jon was just a bastard they were all still so young and unknowing. “You saved our little brother, and you gave Arya time, time which she used to kill the Night King and bring the dawn.”

“I—” Theon is so clearly overwhelmed, but he has not shrunken away from them. “Arya? Our— _Arya_?” Jon doesn’t think Theon realised what he almost said, _our Arya, our sister,_ but Sansa has, and her small smile grows.

“Aye,” comes Arya’s voice. She has appeared suddenly, and Theon jumps at it, but the others have grown accustomed to her silent movements. She’s brought Bran, too, having slipped him and his chair through the still-open door. She doesn’t say anything about Theon’s slip of the tongue, only lifting one deadpan eyebrow. She could leave it at that, let Theon squirm, but she doesn’t.

She takes a breath, and then says: “I don’t think I can forgive your act of betraying Robb, or what you did to Winterfell. I’m not good at forgiving. But I do forgive _you_ , Theon. The man you are now is not the same one who betrayed Robb. You saved Bran, in the Long Night. You saved Sansa long before that. You fought for our home, and our family, and for the living.”

“And if Robb were here,” Bran adds steadily, “he would be proud.”

No one says anything about the tears on Theon’s face. The room is silent but it is comfortable, and Jon is surrounded by people he loves. Winter has come, but the pack survives, and it has risen harder and stronger. _Yes,_ thinks Jon, _this is my family._

 

When he tells Daenerys the truth about his parents, she pulls her hand out from his, her face sliding from open concern to a cool and imperceptible able mask. He can see all the emotions rippling across her face: relief and joy, that she is not alone, sudden horror that he poses a threat to her power, confusion and betrayal that they share blood.

“I don’t want the throne, or that bloody birthright,” he says, desperate to convince her.

Daenerys turns away from him, striding towards the fire. “It doesn’t matter what you _want_ ,” she snaps, “if the men find out you have a stronger claim than me, everything I have fought for will be lost.” Her words are wounded and defensive. “They will say your claim trumps mine.” Jon shakes his head roughly, then kneels in front of her and grabs her hands, staring into her eyes, trying to make her see.

He breathes in and takes a chance.

“Your armies don’t follow you because of your claim,” Jon says. He’s making the choice to trust her. To trust her with the truth, all of it, and throw caution to the wind. “Your claim isn’t what matters, Dany. Your armies aren’t even from Westeros. The Targaryens—your family—they _lost_ the Iron Throne, years ago. Tyrion Lannister has as much a claim as you do, really: his family sat on that throne, the same as yours. Your armies follow you because they love you, because they believe in you and they respect you and they want to see the better world you’ve promised to create. Because you saved them, and you inspire them.”

Daenerys is staring at him, betrayed, and Jon can’t stop speaking now. “I don’t want a throne. I never have. I want my family safe, and free.” _That includes you,_ he almost says. He chides himself: _not yet._ “Your people call you the breaker of chains, and you told me once that you want to break the wheel that crushes all people underneath it. None of that relies on your claim, or your father’s blood. That’s all you, Dany. Your dragons are yours, your armies are yours, and…” he pauses. “I am yours.”

She reaches out, cups his face in her hands. For a moment, he thinks she’ll push him away. Instead, she stares into his eyes, searching him for something. He takes another breath and hopes he isn’t hurting her by telling her what she needs to hear. “Dany, I don’t follow you because I have to. I follow you because I _choose_ you, just like Missandei and Grey Worm and the Unsullied, just like the Dothraki and the Iron Fleet. You give Westeros _hope_. You don’t need a birthright to do that… If you rely only on your birthright to do that, or even on your dragons, then the wheel will simply continue turning.”

Daenerys stares at him. Her eyes are conflicted, desperate and still wounded. “I… I… I need time, Jon. I need… to think about this, about… what I will do.”

Jon slumps, defeated. “Daenerys, _please_.” She looks away from him, her eyes shining and her lips pursed. “I don’t want a throne, you know I don’t. I’ll never tell anyone else of my birth, if it scares you so much,” for good reason, he knows, “but you deserved to know. You’re part of my family too, now.”

At that, she freezes and turns to him. “You told your siblings? You told _Sansa?_ ”

Jon gets to his feet. “They are my family,” he replies. “They want the same things as me, Daenerys. Our family, safe. A better world and a secure kingdom. They don’t want another war.”

Daenerys scoffs. “Sansa hates me. She would dethrone me for you in an instant.”

Jon shakes his head. “That’s not true. Sansa… she has suffered at the hands of people who claimed thrones that didn’t belong to them, or that they didn’t deserve. She suffered for years and years under people who only used their power against her. All she wants, now, is to keep her family safe, to keep herself safe, and keep the North safe.”

Daenerys chews on her lip. “You don’t think she would try to put you on the Iron Throne.”

“Maybe,” Jon says honestly, and sees Daenerys stiffen, “Maybe she would, before I spoke to her. But Sansa knows I don’t want that. She’s my sister and we love each other. We’ve fought long years to piece our family back together.”

“Jon, I—” Daenerys turns away sharply and covers her face. Jon reaches out but stops short of touching her, uncertain and torn. “Do you hear what you’re asking me to do? Trusting your family to keep a secret that would only benefit you, that would tear me down so easily?”

Jon straightens, and he strengthens his resolve. “It would not benefit me, because I would never accept the Iron Throne. I gave up my crown, Dany. I didn’t only give it up because I thought you would be a good queen. I did it to save the North. I’m no King, not anymore.”

Daenerys breathes, shakily. “They will want the North freed, then. Your sister will never call me her Queen.”

Jon shakes his head. “You should talk to Sansa,” he says, instead of directly answering her. “She is not what you think. She will surprise you.” He pauses. “And I’m sorry, Dany, but I’m not going to argue against Northern Independence. Southern Wars have taken so much from my family. Can you really fault Sansa for not relying on the promises of a woman she’s only just met?” Sansa’s stories are not his to tell, but he thinks that if she and the woman in front of him spoke to each other with some honesty, they would find their stories similar and their spines equally straight.

“No,” Daenerys answers softly, and then she turns to face him again, her face warped by indecision. “I don’t know what to do, Jon.”

Jon closes his eyes. “I have said everything I can say,” he answers quietly. “Let me know what your plans are when you decide on them, Your Grace.”

He turns to go, and Daenerys grabs his wrist. He looks back at her, waiting, and she squares her jaw.

“Can you… can you find Sansa, for me? I think I should like to speak to her, if she is not busy.”

Jon smiles softly, relief rippling over him like water. “I will see where she is,” he agrees. “Will you wait for her in the Godswood?” He cannot ask Sansa to speak to Daenerys on ground she is not familiar with, and he would not ask Daenerys to turn her chambers into a battleground.

Daenerys nods sharply, having made up her mind, and when she smiles at him it’s a small thing but there’s hope when there was none, and Jon prays to the Old Gods that she can find some common ground with his sister, that they will not face each other with armoured words but with minds set on peace.

 

Jon doesn’t know what they speak of that day. Sansa agrees to speak with her, but her eyes are sharp and her words carefully measured in the way they are when she is thinking politically, and as Jon watches her walk away he thinks _please, please be open to this._ They stay at the Godswood for hours, and Jon worries even more than Rickon, who asks Jon if it’s really true that Daenerys can turn into a dragon and if so is it wise to leave Sansa at her mercy? Bran rolls his eyes, looking nothing more than human.

When they emerge from the Godswood, they are walking arm in arm. Dany is smiling at the ground, and Sansa is telling her about Winterfell, and their eyes are not as hard and cold as Jon had grown used to seeing them.

He sags in relief and Bran sighs at him. “I told you it would be alright,” Bran reminds him, and Jon pushes his brother’s shoulder. Bran has been spending as much time with Meera as Arya has with Gendry, and both of his siblings are brighter for it, with smiles that come to their faces easier and a brightness in their eyes that had been dimmed.

“You did not,” he grumbles. “You said I shouldn’t worry. That is not the same.”

Arya, who appeared at his shoulder a few minutes ago, pulls a face. “Worrywart,” she teases, and Rickon grins at her. Rickon, who used to look at her like she was a stranger, has become almost as reverent of her as the soldiers. He thinks she’s fierce and wild and brave, and Arya plays along with his questions and his shy imitation in a way that makes Jon proud, her patience and growing affection for Rickon especially notable when Jon knows how much she hates the attention.  

“I’m not a worrywart,” Jon protests, scowling, and Rickon laughs.

“You are,” he says. “Bran, has Jon always been a worrywart?”

“Yes,” Arya says solemnly. “Jon Snow—worrywart of Winterfell. Broods all day and scowls all night.” She yelps, then, as Jon lunges towards her to lock her head under his arm, mussing up her hair like he used to, Rickon cackling as Bran chuckles, and Jon doesn’t think he’s smiled so freely in years.

(Jon will never know of what Sansa and Daenerys spoke of that day. Perhaps they spoke of all the things men had taken from them, or the things they had taken back. Perhaps they spoke of freedom and independence, and what words like that even mean to people who have barely known them. Perhaps they speak of politics and practicalities, of Dorne and the Iron Islands and the complications that arise from seven kingdoms that look so dissimilar all being banded together under one crown. Perhaps they speak of safety, and of promises, of duty and people and responsibility.

Or perhaps they say _I will never bow to you, but my people come first._ Perhaps they say _I would rather we be friends than enemies._ Perhaps they say _I have respected you even when I disliked you. Let’s try harder this time._ Perhaps none of it. Perhaps all of it.)

 

Bran asks to talk to Daenerys the next day. Jon agrees to arrange their meeting with some trepidation, too familiar with Bran’s cryptic messages to be comfortable with the idea, but Rickon gasps and asks if he can have a meeting too, so perhaps he can ride a dragon.

“Absolutely not, no dragon riding for you,” Jon says sternly, and Rickon scowls.

“You did it,” he says sullenly.

“I fell off,” Jon points out, exasperated, but when Rickon’s out only grows he sighs and ruffles his brother’s hair. “I will ask,” he says, conceding. “No promises. Perhaps when all this is over, you can ride a dragon.” Arya rolls her eyes at his weak will, but there’s a burning spark in her eyes that Jon knows well. Arya wants to ride a dragon too. Jon catches her eye and raises his eyebrows, and she blushes at being caught but she can’t stop herself from grinning.

“I always used to want to be a dragonrider,” she says cheekily while Sansa tidies Rickon’s messy curls, her fingers brushing his hair back. 

“It would be nice,” Bran says wistfully, “to feel the wind on my own arms, and see the land from my own eyes.”

Sansa laughs, loud and carefree, the sound ringing out in the cold winter’s air. “All of you will ride a dragon before the week is over, I’m sure. Look at that—Jon’s halfway to getting you on Rhaegal’s back already.” She turns to look at him with laughing eyes, and he shrugs at her, his own smile playing at the corners of his mouth. His siblings know how to play him, perhaps it's true, but he will die happy if he never has to deny them anything in the world. 

 

(He and Daenerys do go on a dragon ride the next day. It still scares him, it might always scare him, but there is a peace in the sky that he has never felt on land. He can almost forget everything, all his responsibilities and his burdens, between a dragon’s wings. Daenerys laughs at his clumsy manoeuvring, her cheeks red and wind-burnt from the cold, and her eyes are brighter than he’s seen them be since Dragonstone. 

When he tells her that his three youngest siblings want to soar through the clouds like she does, Daenerys grins at him with all her teeth.

“Four of your siblings,” she corrects. “Sansa, too.”

“Sansa wouldn’t, I don’t think,” Jon says, surprised, and Daenerys laughs at him, loud and bubbly.

“Oh, no,” she says, merry. “Sansa would very much like to ride a dragon.” She looks at Jon and her smile grows. “Perhaps Rhaegal will leave you behind, when he sees how much competition you have to ride him.”)

 

When Jon brings Daenerys to bran’s chair by the fire, he finds Arya sitting by Bran’s side. “Queen Daenerys,” Bran says politely. “Thank you for coming to talk with me.”

Daenerys smiles at him, uncertain but plastering on her queenliest expression. “Of course. is something the matter?”

“Yes,” says Bran. Daenerys stiffens and frowns, and Bran turns to look at Arya. “Arya lived in Kings Landing for a few weeks,” he continues as if he had said nothing at all, and Arya inclines her head in acknowledgement. “And I have just had a dream, Your Grace, that I think you should know about.”

Jon leaves them, then, but he hears from Daenerys later that night just what it was that Bran told her. Dreams of dragon fire, of a crumbling city, of soldiers killing children and bells that rang on ignored but not unheard. Arya, Daenerys says, had leaned forward and spoken in an even tone about the pathways of the city, the hiding places and the orphans who filled them, the people who bayed for Ned Stark’s blood but did not deserve to burn with Cersei.

“I will not burn down Kings Landing,” Daenerys says to him that night, his hand held in hers, her head on his shoulder. “I am not my father. I will win the wars to come, and I will take the throne and the crown, but I will not massacre a city to do so. I swear this on the Old Gods and the new, and on myself and my dragons, and on you, Jon Snow.”

Jon exhales and presses a kiss to her hair, and he tries not to think about a world where Kings Landing crumbles into flames.

* * *

The day that they finally head off, the sun is shining. Theon is not well enough to join them in battle or on the road, but he’s where he belongs at Sansa’s side. Sansa is trying hard not to cry when she drags Jon into a very tight hug.

“You _will_ come back to us, Jon Snow,” she says fiercely into his cloak. “Do you hear me?”

“Yes,” Jon answers, and he tightens his grip around Sansa’s waist. He breathes deep, tyring to stave off tears.

“I’ll be waiting,” Sansa says, when she pulls away, and Jon smiles at her. Theon, at her side, clasps Jon’s arm in his own when Jon steps forward. Jon pulls him further to grip Theon’s back for just a moment.

“Stay by her side, Theon,” he says quietly. “And stay safe.”

Theon smiles at him. It’s a wobbly smile, lop-sided, but it always has been. “And you, Snow.”

Jon huffs, smiling despite himself, and as Dany steps forward to hug Sansa he moves further down the line to crouch and kiss Bran’s forehead. He pulls back, cupping Bran’s cheek, and Bran smiles at him.

“This isn’t the end, Jon,” Bran tells him. “You brought us all together, all of our family. We won’t fall apart now. The Starks—us and ours—we endure.”

Jon looks away for a moment, then back, and he smiles. “No,” he agrees. “We will meet again, little brother.”

Rickon doesn’t wait for him to straighten up before he flings himself at Jon, his arms not as skinny as they used to be. Jon _oofs_ but chuckles as he returns the embrace, pressing a kiss onto Rickon’s head of curls. “And you,” he says, pulling back so he can wipe away the tears on Rickon’s cheeks. “Listen to Sansa, listen to Bran, stay safe and be proud.” Rickon scowls at him through his tears, and Jon knows what he isn’t saying and knows what he needs to hear.

“I’ll come back,” he whispers, and it is a promise. “I will, Rickon. You are not alone, you know that.”

Rickon nods through a sob, then launches himself back into Jon’s arms.

When Rickon pulls away, it’s because Tormund has a hand on his soldier. “Let the man breathe, pup,” he says, then yanks Jon roughly into a hug. “Don’t die out there, little crow,” he breathes into Jon’s hair. Jon laughs, hugging Tormund back, and his breath is strangely caught in his throat. Tormund claps a hand on his back, his eyes kind.

“You’ve got the North in you, Jon Snow, the real North. I’ll be seeing more of you yet.”

Jon laughs again, and nods. “Probably,” he agrees. Ghost bounds up to say goodbye to Tormund and Jon rejoins Daenerys, pushing down the feeling that rises in his chest, an aching sort of bittersweet joy, a desperate love for all these people he's bidding farewell to. 

Arya, at his other side, finished with her own goodbyes, jostles his shoulder. Needle is strapped to her side, and the scars on her face no longer look so red and angry. She's wearing a cloak Sansa made her, just as he is. Her eyes are still watering from Sansa’s hug and the kisses on her cheeks bestowed by Bran and Rickon, the latter nearly knocking her off her feet with his embrace. Gendry is already on a horse ahead of them, Davos at his side. 

“Don’t look so sad, big brother,” Arya says, smiling at him. Her eyes are clear from shadows and darkness, and her spine is straight. “We’re coming back, after all.”

Jon throws an arm over her shoulder, tugging her close to kiss her forehead as they walk towards the awaiting armies, towards the battles to come and the crowns yet to be won. “Aye,” he agrees. “We’ll be home soon. All of us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and there it is. I'd like to think that Dany keeps her word, and when Jon comes back home Rickon hugs him so hard that Jon nearly chokes, and Bran's eyes are clear and see only the present. I'd like to think that Sansa becomes the Lady she always has been, and Arya keeps a sword in her hands but those she loves by her side. I'd like to think that Theon and his sister reunite. Maybe Jon goes far North, maybe he stays with Dany in the South, maybe he lives at Winterfell until the day he dies. Maybe Jon wears a crown, maybe he doesn't, but he does neither alone. I'd like to think the Starks are happy.
> 
> Maybe they are. They are together, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> pls review friends!!! :)


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